Oh dear. With Scotland Yard treating today’s attack in Westminster this afternoon ‘as a terrorist incident’, hacks have spent the day trying to establish more details about the situation that has so far claimed four casualties. However, has a thirst for news meant some are a bit too eager to publish before properly checking the facts?
Mr S only asks after Channel 4 had to perform a humiliating U-turn this evening live on air. At the beginning of Channel 4’s 7 O’clock news bulletin, the broadcaster announced that they had reason to believe Abu Izzadeen, the Islamic hate preacher, was the Westminster terror attacker.
However as the show went on, this ‘scoop’ began to unravel. You see there was a problem… sources suggested that Izzadeen couldn’t have been in Westminster as he is actually in jail. As the broadcaster got wind of this, Simon Israel — Channel 4’s senior home affairs correspondent — had to tell viewers that they were ‘not as certain about identity of the attacker as we thought’ due to “new information” that he was in prison.
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